


An Open Letter to Edward Kaspbrak (That He Will Hopefully Never, Ever Read)

by richiebeepbeep



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Internalized Homophobia, Love Letters, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 06:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21131819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richiebeepbeep/pseuds/richiebeepbeep
Summary: Dear Eds,I think about you all the time.It is so fucking stupid how often you cross my mind with strong, sun-tanned legs. But you do and so I’m typing out my feelings on the clunky old laptop that my dad gave to me — gently used — in our sophomore year of high school like he was doing me a favor. I guess he was, seeing as your mother never let you have your own computer and probably would have hovered over your shoulder the entire time you used it if she had, but I digress.Or, Richie Tozier writes a long-winded letter that Eddie Kaspbrak is never meant to read.





	An Open Letter to Edward Kaspbrak (That He Will Hopefully Never, Ever Read)

> _Dear Eds,_
> 
> I think about you all the time.
> 
> It is so fucking stupid how often you cross my mind with strong, sun-tanned legs. But you do and so I’m typing out my feelings on the clunky old laptop that my dad gave to me — gently used — in our sophomore year of high school like he was doing me a favor. I guess he was, seeing as your mother never let you have your own computer and probably would have hovered over your shoulder the entire time you used it if she had, but I digress.
> 
> Our sweet Haystack recommended this particular thought exercise a few months ago because he figured it would give me some catharsis to get all of my Nascar-fast racing thoughts out of my head. They constantly bounce around like bullets ricocheting inside of my thick skull and I’m scared that one day they’ll shoot out of my mouth and you’ll hear them. Hear me. I’m scared that you’ll look at my face and read them like the pages of the colorful X-Men comics we both like to read. How else did Haystack know I needed some fucking romantic catharsis this summer? Am I that obvious?
> 
> I must be that obvious. You must have always known, and you were too nice to say anything about it because you knew it would ruin the group dynamic if I had to tuck my tail between my legs and run. You knew that six wouldn’t feel very lucky, didn’t you?
> 
> It is dumb how much I think about you and how badly I want to _stop_ thinking about you and how it feels like a betrayal to some inherent part of my being to want that. It’s as if, in the burning white-hot core of myself that I am too afraid to touch because my love for you will melt my fingers to the bone, I know that I’m _supposed_ to waste roughly fifteen thousand thoughts a day on you. But they aren’t actually wasted thoughts, so I’m sorry for saying that.
> 
> I think about your hands a lot, fingers fumbling over the zipper of your fanny pack when you’re desperate for a puff on that placebo aspirator. It alleviates your anxiety, which is sort of fucked up to think about. I hate that the thing that gave you anxiety in the first place is what helps calm you down. I hate that. I don’t know what to do about it though, so I do nothing.
> 
> I do nothing as I watch your mother demand your love from the La-Z-Boy in her dingy living room besides make tasteless jokes that feel like rot on my tongue. I do nothing as I peruse the snack aisle of the Center Street Drug Store while you pick up prescriptions that your mother called in for you that we both know you don’t need. I do nothing as your mother continues, year after fucking year, to poison you mentally and physically and emotionally and in every single -ly way a woman can. How dare she call herself your mother, your caretaker, when all she does is make you feel less-than? How dare she make you feel dirty in the places under your skin that you can’t possibly scrub clean when she is the one with the sickness?
> 
> She doesn’t love you. I know that’s a bold thing to say, but hear me out. I would like to think I know a little bit about what parental love looks like, and it’s not Sonia Kaspbrak holding you back from enjoying yourself. Sometimes when you’re not around, the Losers (see: mostly me and Bevvie, because I can’t help but bring up your absence at every opportunity and she thrills to enable my pointless yearning) crack jokes about how Sonia must have you on a leash tonight, or whatever. But sometimes I wonder if it’s not a leash, but a noose, and every time Sonia tells you that you’re too frail for farm nights with Mikey, she’s constricting it just a little tighter. That’s why she insists you use that inhaler, Eds — she’s going to choke you to death one day and she knows it. I know it, and I know you will let her, because in some unfortunate way, you love her as any son wants to love his mother even if she hasn’t earned it. Even if she never will.
> 
> Thinking about your mother forcibly medicating you makes me want to kick and scream and punch a mirror or something like tough men do in the movies when they’re really angry. I am so upset I want to break the skin of my knuckles against glass to prove it. I wish you could leave her, but I know she and her poison are your fucking cross to bear.
> 
> It’s all poison, Eds. You don’t need it and sometimes I think it’s literally killing you, because you’ll be lost when the teachers call on you in class and you eat like a fucking zombie at lunch and you barely even sigh when I call you Eds anymore. I guess those first two things don’t matter much anymore, but the third thing feels like tying rocks to my chest and dumping me into the quarry. I can tell when you skip your meds because you’re lively and you chase me off the quarry ledge like we’re twelve years old and it gives me fucking butterflies, you asshole. My stomach twists into knots like greasy mall pretzels every time you smile at me in the sunshine, and I hate that the poison your mother feeds to you takes that feeling away from me. It’s all that I have.
> 
> I know about poison. I poison myself too, but I do it on purpose because I like the way it feels and not because my parents fucking hate the person I’m struggling to become. No, they love me and support my choices and I poison myself anyway. I drink and I smoke and I’ve taken more drugs than I’ll ever admit to you, because you’d be really mad at me if you knew what I’ve tried in the backseats of cars that belong to people that aren’t actually my friends. They’re losers, and not the good kind. I think I’m actually an idiot and every single test I’ve taken and aced has been a fluke. I think I’m worthless and a waste of everybody’s time. I talk until my throat goes raw and I’ve exhausted every Voice in my arsenal because I want to stumble upon something important. I want to say something of worth, I want to feel like my life has meaning.
> 
> It doesn’t though, and that’s fine, I guess. If anything, maybe my existence has meaning in relation to the Losers. I exist to play the clown, if you’ll pardon the fucking expression, and entertain you guys. It feels awesome to make Big Bill laugh, to see Staniel crack a grin like he can’t help it. I love all of you so, so much and I don’t know how to express it without being excessively obnoxious about it. It’s probably better if you all don’t take me seriously anyway.
> 
> If you took me seriously, maybe you’d all put two-and-two together and figure that I love you different. You, Eds, with your doe eyes and short nails and flat hair. I love you different, alright. I think I’m in love with you, if I’m mature enough to even understand what that kind of thing implies. I think I am. I think I get it, because you’re the first and only boy who crosses my mind when I hear a love song.
> 
> I mean. _Yowza_, Eds! You could read all of this crap twelve times over and still not comprehend how much I’m into you. I love you like the sun rises in the morning and the moon pushes it away in the night. I love you like Robert Smith and Thom Yorke and fucking Billy Corgan croon about love, get it?
> 
> It’s always been you, it’s only ever been you. Even when I was a dumb little kid and I didn’t know what it meant that my heart fucking palpitated when your hand brushed mine as we walked down the street. Even when I was barely a teenager and I knew exactly why I had to whip my head around in the other direction whenever you almost caught me staring at your stupid mouth. (In retrospect that was probably a dead giveaway, so there’s more evidence to toss into the Eddie Goddamn Well Knows That I Love Him And Is Too Fucking Kind To Say A Thing About It pile.) I only admitted it to myself in junior year. I remember the date, which seems ridiculous,  but that’s because I marked it on the Morrissey calendar on my wall with a sloppy X in red ink. Only I know what the X means and why I haven’t changed the month since.
> 
> Just last year, on the tenth of October 1993, I, Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier, finally admitted wholeheartedly that I am in love with you, Edward “Eds” Kaspbrak.  It was because you were startled by someone’s toddler jumping out of the bushes in an ugly Frankenstein's monster mask and reached for me without thinking about it. You felt silly for it, cheeks clearly burning a splotchy pink, but your fingers were still wrapped around my forearm and I was so fucking in love with you I ran home and wrote it down as soon as you went inside your mom’s place.  I am still in love with you tonight and I cannot stop being in love with you and I am sorry for that. You probably hate being in this position, if you do know about it and you’re too gracious to bring it up. You’d probably hate to know that when I get stoned I sit around and meticulously put together mixtapes for you that you’ll never hear because when I sober up I realize how fucking romantic they all sound. You probably do hate it when I crawl into your bedroom in the middle of the night, drunk on some cheap booze a high school burnout brought to the party, and I demand your attention. I’m only brave enough to demand it earnestly when I’m like that, warm on the inside for once in a way I can’t get when I’m sober. I’m honest when I’m drunk, and I’m sorry for that too. I’m sorry for apologizing so much too, dude.
> 
> Anyway, I guess this is getting pretty long and I’m rambling because I could talk about how much I love you for days. I love the way the corner of your mouth curls slightly when you call me _Rich_. I love the way you let me rest my head on your shoulder during movie nights in Big Bill’s garage. I love the way you danced next to me at Prom this year (not even with me because we both know that would’ve gotten us our asses handed to us, but still, _next to me_).
> 
> I love you. I love you. I love you.
> 
> There, I said it, and you’ll never read this, because I’m totally not sending it to you because I’m not an insane person. I had seven drinks tonight at Haystack’s Goodbye Bash and doing this dorky, romantic thing in his honor seemed like a good idea when I started typing but now I’m crying about it in the dark like a jackass. I miss him already. I miss him like I’ve missed Bill all month, and like I’m going to miss Stanley next week, and like I’ve missed Beverly since May. God, I miss her so much it feels like she ripped one of my fucking limbs off on her way out of Derry. I miss her like something fundamental is missing from me now.
> 
> Maybe something is missing, and once I’m apart from the rest of you Losers and miss each of you in equal measure, I’ll never get those things back.
> 
> It really hurts, you know? It sucks bad that Bev hasn’t called or emailed or sent a fucking carrier pigeon or anything like she promised she would. Did she forget about me? Did she not care that much about me after all? Did she only humor me because I was there and now that I’m not there it’s like I don’t even exist? Does anybody ever think of me when I’m not around? I bet you do, Eds. I bet you think, “Boy, am I glad to have a break from the four-eyed faggot that’s in love with me!” Alright, I know you wouldn’t think that about me because I’ve never heard you say that word and you know just as well as I do how it feels to have it spat at you with acid-tipped tongues. But you’ll probably be at least a little happy to get rid of me.
> 
> It’ll be soon. I’ll be gone very soon. The week after next, I’ll be in sunny Los Angeles and you’ll still be stuck here in Derry. I wish I could fold you up and stuff you into my suitcase. I wish you would let me rescue you — like you’re a princess locked away in a tall tower. But I’m no prince that anybody wants. I’m a drunk driving statistic waiting to happen.
> 
> If I miss Bev like she was my right arm, I’m going to miss you like you were the sexy little blood-pumping star of the show sitting squarely in my chest. The thing that keeps me alive when the rest of me is too tired to go on. My heart, Eds. I’m going to leave all of my love in Derry, because I don’t think I’ll ever love anybody as hard as I love you. I love you, Eddie Kaspbrak. I love you and I’m sorry and I wish I could say it but every time I try the words get caught in my throat. And then some other Voice takes over and you roll your eyes but I think,_ thank God_. I thank God you don’t have to hear me say it. It would legitimize all of those shitty things Sonia has ever told you about me. It would make what Henry Bowers and his gang of dead buffoons said when I was a kid real.
> 
> I have to tell you this now because I won’t be brave enough to when you’re actually standing in front of me to wish me well before L.A. I carved our initials on ye olde infamous Kissing Bridge._R + E_. Ayuh, that was all me, sweetheart. Young and pining and love bursting from my fucking seams. I wish I had known nothing would change in the following four-ish years, maybe I would’ve sucked it up and planted one on you in the Clubhouse. Even if it ended disastrously and you threw me out of the hammock, I can’t help but think _what if_, you know? It’s too late now. It’s almost five in the morning, you are snoring half a foot away from me, and.
> 
> Eddie, my love, for the last time: I love you more than you’ll ever know.
> 
> Love love love love love love love,
> 
> _ Richie Tozier _

Richie’s eyes are burning tired when he finally closes his laptop and sets it aside, warm and humming at the foot of his bed. Eddie won’t kick it off, the guy barely ever stirs in his sleep. He sleeps like a corpse, actually, with his hands over his chest like he’s trying to hold onto something that isn’t there. Richie wishes he could fall asleep when his head hits the pillow the way Eddie does, but the universe doesn’t grant wishes so he often lies awake watching the stars streak across the sky between the open slit of his curtains. Sometimes he lets his eyes wander a little to the right, where he can just make out the silhouette of the boy he loves. It makes him nervous to be so close to Eddie sometimes, like he’s going to fall asleep and wake up with his arms around him. There would be no hiding his feelings then. Worst-case scenario, Eddie would be so disgusted that he’d push Richie away, run out the door, and scrub his skin raw under a burning stream in the shower down the hall.

Eddie must hate him a little bit, if he _knows_. Sonia has always said that Richie is dirty in particular, and if Eddie’s half-hysterical rants about AIDS blood and the like are any indication, he must think Richie is downright filthy. That’s probably why he always whips his hands away when they happen to touch Richie’s these days. At least Eddie is cool enough to not be loudly homophobic. At least Eddie lets Richie have his friendship, even if he selfishly, grossly wants so much more than that.

He falls asleep at 5:23 AM and stays that way, because he’s a heavy sleeper with a terrible schedule. Eddie wakes up at 5:44 AM but the sun is up, so there's no time to cherish the way Richie quietly breathes in-and-out next to him, just inches away and no doubt barely having fallen asleep. He has to get home before his mother notices he's gone. In his panic to rush out of bed without waking Richie, Eddie kicks the laptop off of the bed. It slides down the comforter and lands with a soft _thump_ that still sends Eddie’s heart dropping firmly into his ass. A beat. Richie doesn’t stop snoring softly and Richie’s parents don’t come barreling down the hall to ask if he’s okay. Eddie sucks in a breath that hurts, like he’d been holding it without realizing, and then he leans over to grab the laptop, scooting off of the bed himself. He hopes it didn’t break; his mother won’t let him get a job for himself and she doesn’t have the funds to get Richie a replacement. Not that she would, not even if Eddie felt really bad about it around her.

_It was just an accident, Eddie-Bear_, he could hear her tut condescendingly into his ear. _I can onlyimagine the kind of junk that Tozier boy was looking at on there, anyway. I hope you’re careful with what you let him expose you to. God can see into you, sweet boy. He knows what’s in your heart. He knows what’s in your heart. He knows_…

Eddie sniffs and glances back at Richie. Richie, in his fucking Batman boxers and an old, unremarkable gray t-shirt. There are at least four holes in the cotton that Eddie can count from the floor where he’s holding the fallen laptop, but he knows they’ll never get mended. He turns his attention back to the clunky portable computer and takes in another painful breath, tells himself to chill the fuck out.

Eddie opens the laptop to check on the state of the screen like he’s ripping off a band-aid. He smiles brightly when he sees that everything is intact, all of the keys still in place, and without really reading any of it, he scrolls up whatever text document Richie had sitting open to make sure the trackpad still works. (He does catch a few select lines but thinks little of them as he scrolls — _It really hurts_ — _I’m rambling_ — _I think about your hands_.) His smile falters when he makes it to the top of the letter and sees _Dear Eds_, because it means Richie was up all night writing something for him and the very thought of Richie spending that much time focusing on him made Eddie’s stomach twirl pretty pirouettes inside of him.

Had he seen the word _love_ typed on the last page? On every page before that? Eddie reaches down for the fanny pack he isn’t wearing, suddenly sucking in breaths too-fast, eyes comically wide as he pushes the laptop aside. He looks back at Richie, sleeping soundly over the covers, and covers his mouth. Eddie wonders if Richie would hate him for reading the letter before he’s ready to share it.

Still, his eyes wander.

**Author's Note:**

> hey hey you can catch me on [tumblr](https://richiebeepbeep.tumblr.com/) here or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/mick_draws) there,
> 
> i wrote this on a whim in the middle of the night so if youd like to see more of this just lmk in the comments,
> 
> and i was listening to [this playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3tHdBQhGJyg5KyhclVGZu2?si=VDJmBScaQYGtq0vrej5Meg) while i wrote!


End file.
